


Gifts Not Wasted

by Path



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 22:50:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5761873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ino and Mireän learn there is more they're allowed to be than just princesses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gifts Not Wasted

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on the meme asking for the older women acting as mentors to the younger ones. I'm not sure if Ino and Mireän actually have the princess rank, since I don't think they're addressed as such, but since Maia is their guardian now I'm going with it

“Cousin Maia,” Ino begins one day at breakfast, “you have a _girl maza_.”

She has seen Kiru before, though you aren’t really supposed to talk to her. She is busy, on duty, but Ino never sees her uncle’s guards when they _aren’t_ on duty. Besides, Maia is only having breakfast! How much can there be to guard him from?

Idra makes a tsking noise and says, “Ino…” in that tone he has, and her uncle, the emperor, makes a surprised face. He smiles, though, so Ino knows it was not too rude.

“Yes,” he says, “Kiru Athmaza is one of my nohecharai.” He glances up at her, gives the faint nod that means she can join the conversation, and Kiru steps forward.

“It is a little rare,” she says dryly.

“I’ve never seen a girl maza before you,” Ino tells her.

“There have been,” Kiru says. She has crouched down to one knee, and is about as tall as Ino, sitting. “But in the past, it was harder and rarer. There will be more, now, I think, now that I have been given the honour His Serenity has granted me.”

Maia nods. “Actually, my sister Vedero has a friend who has made a school for girls with the talent. I had been meaning to look into it and see if there was anything I could do to help it along. Csevet?” he asks, and Maia’s secretary, seated over where he won’t get in the way, makes a note of it.

Ino is astonished. “There’s a whole _school_ for girl mazei?” she asks. “Idra, may I attend it?”

“Ino,” he says, in that same tone, “we already have the tutelage of one of the greatest mazei available. And we must be here, at the Court, where Cousin Maia may… may need us. Besides, why wouldst thou need to go to a maza school?”

“Because I’m going to be one, now,” Ino says. “I heard. I dreamed it last night.” Kiru Athmaza’s eyebrows almost shoot off her head. Then there is sort of a whirlwind of people giving each other significant looks and servants running to fetch things, and later Ino has a long talk with Kiru and Leilis and later with Cousin Maia. She has to go over all the details of her dream and the words that got said and what it made her feel, and in the end it is agreed that Kiru and Leilis will tutor her until a _third_ tutor can be found. Ino thinks she will have to do a lot more work with three tutors, but she knows as soon as it’s arranged that she was right. She is going to be a maza.

= = =

After that they both get tutored more, and Idra too, but Ino knows it’s because of her. Mireän complains about the workload, and Idra gives her a lot of talks about responsibility and finishing what she’s started. Ino doesn’t mind, much, because they get to go out. They didn’t go out much before, only to a few functions and sometimes to make appearances at one of Mama’s parties, but they haven’t been out at _all_ since Cousin Maia’s coronation, so Ino is very excited.

Her uncle, the emperor, takes her to the maza school for girls, and Idra and Mireän can’t even come with them! It’s just for Ino and Maia, and for Kiru and Telimezh, she guesses. They meet Maza Eliyo, a short woman with orange goblin eyes, whose robes are all worn out and whose smile takes up her whole face. She tours them around the building, and Ino is astonished all over again. There are two classes of girls, one young and one older, more girls than Ino has ever seen in one place except at Mama’s salons. But they aren’t just sitting around talking over tea- they’re working. One class has a set of desks the students stand at, and they each have a candle in front of them. As Ino watches, the flames flicker and dance. She can feel something happening, but she’s not sure what.

“A maza must have excellent control,” Maza Eliyo says, as they peer in the doorway. “This is the younger class of our two, and their efforts here will help develop control over their minds and their talents.” 

Ino can’t stop staring, but since Maia is no better she knows it is alright. They are _taught_ by a woman, too, another lady in a blue dress and jacket, worn like Eliyo’s. “Is it true no boys are educated here?” she asks in her most polite way.

Maza Eliyo nods. “Yes, that’s correct. Men who display the talent are scooped up by the Athmaz’are, and a few women attend there as well. Our little school is just an alternative, at the moment, for those whose families cannot free them for a full life’s obligation that the Athmaz’are would require. Primarily, Serenity,” Ino stops herself from making a face, for Eliyo keeps starting to speak with her, but keeps drifting back to her uncle, “we recognize that mazeise talent is a gift, but one that is difficult to use and control without training and discipline. Without these, we fear many gifts may have been wasted.”

They arrange for Ino to spend one day a week at the school; she doesn’t get to attend full time, but while the grownups are talking about it, Maia leans down to her and asks, “Cousin, are you happy with this?” and Ino smiles at him and nods, thinking about candle flames.

In the afternoon, making a full excursion of it, they visit Aunt Vedero.

= = =

Mireän is a little jealous; Ino is special now, and Idra of course was always special, but she is in the middle, and neither the emperor’s heir nor a potential maza. But she is still the daughter of a Prince and she lives with her uncle, the Emperor, so she must not begrudge the honours she holds. But it is hard, sometimes, to see Idra called away to walk with their cousin, or now to see all the attention lavished on her little sister for her gifts.

She forgets it, a little, making the trip out to visit Aunt Vedero. They had never seen much of her, only heard from their mother that she was at court. Mireän thought it not very likely that her mother and her aunt had been friends; perhaps that was for the better, now that Mama was gone anyhow.

Vedero treats them awkwardly, as if she doesn’t know how to talk to them. At least, until Maia asks if perhaps she might show them her telescope, and her aunt brings out a fantastic thing. 

“It’s a _unicorn horn_ ,” Mireän breathes, and then feels self-conscious. But Vedero laughs, and agrees, and shows them how the telescope works, bringing far things near. Mireän loves it; Suler used to read her a story, when she was young, about a unicorn giving up its horn to save the Emperor’s sick daughter. But she is also fascinated. She had no idea such things existed. She tries not to take up their entire tea with questions about the constellations, and suddenly she and her distant aunt have a lot to talk about.

It seems just as quick as the decision to let Ino pursue mazeise studies: Mireän will stay with Vedero for a few days. It well becomes her to know her kin, Maia says dryly, and Mireän is delighted and a little nervous. It is a treat, but it is one she’ll have to be careful not to spoil. Vedero seems pleased though, and once Mireän’s siblings and cousin and his guards leave, Vedero smiles at her and asks if she’d like to attend a salon with her that night. Mireän is doubtful, thinking of Mama’s salons- very stiff, with a lot of fake laughter, though the dresses were always very beautiful. She always felt that she was some special doll, brought out and shown around, and everyone cooed over her. She always ended up sitting and listening, though she didn’t know who was being talked about, and once she got tired Suler would take her back to the nursery.

But it is nothing like that, of course. Vedero’s friends laugh like men do, loud and hard, and some of them wear trousers to dinner. Mireän schools herself not to act surprised, but cosmopolitan and worldly, the kind of people her aunt is friends with. It’s very difficult, though, because the things they talk about are _so interesting_. She ends up sitting with Dach’osmin Tativin, who wears wide trousers that look nearly like a dress, and whose hands are as rough as a cook’s, and who exclaims almost immediately, “But you must call me Aizheän!” Mireän tries, but it is hard to remember to be so familiar.

“Of course then I had to weld the entire damn thing together- and pardon my coarseness, please- for it would never have made it through the first course, let alone dinner!” Mireän is nearly crying laughing, for Tativin is full of stories about making things and making things badly, including this one, about her first teakettle and its dubious usefulness. Later she asks Tativin if there’s anything she can’t make, and Tativin says, “Not for long.”

Though she’s by far the funniest person at the party, everyone is interesting. There is a lady doctor who tells Mireän all the places in the body you can strike a man to have him fall instantly, and a woman who studies operas and the way their presentation has changed through the ages, and a part-goblin woman who crafts tiny stacking boxes intricately inlaid with mother-of-pearl. (She presents one to Mireän as a gift, and tells her she’ll have to come back for the rest.)

And there’s a woman who breeds horses, Mireän thinks, and another one who keeps falcons and is training them to send messages. But she is most interested by Tativin’s mechanical things, which she finds beautiful and useful and very, very funny, like Tativin herself. They get along so well that by the time Mireän goes to bed (and it is long before the others do, for she hears raucous, delightful laughter through her dreams), Vedero has suggested they visit Tativin’s workshop sometime, which is the best thing Mireän’s ever been promised.

It takes almost no time for her to fall asleep, having stayed up well past her usual hour, but her head is spinning, and she thinks about the honour of being a princess. Aunt Vedero is related to the Emperor too, and she studies the stars… so Mireän supposes there wouldn’t be anything the matter if she wanted to be a mechanic or a falconer or an inventor, too. She is not the Emperor’s heir or a maza-in-training, but her head is full of ideas, and ideas are just as special.


End file.
